‘Game of Thrones’ season 6, episode 4 reaction: Departing actor responds to character death

Tonight, on “Game of Thrones,” we had yet another death … and this one was both surprising and unsurprising in some way. We figured that with Jon Snow’s resurrection, one Ser Alliser Thorne was probably not going to be long for this world. Yet, at the same time, we certainly thought that he was going to have a longer shelf life this season than this.

Of course, sometimes the supernatural causes people to do surprising things, which is probably why we ended up seeing so many side with the resurrected Jon Snow as Thorne was executed. His death is mostly notable because this is a character who has been around ever since the first season. It may not get the press it deserves, as he was as important to the Night’s Watch as anyone.

So what did Owen Teale think the moment that he got the script for this episode? Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, he gives a really thorough, powerful answer that explains perfectly how someone could feel about their character in this moment:

“There’s a line in Macbeth, “Nothing in his life became him like the leaving did.” This story plays into such a huge section of religion – resurrection. Confronted with Jon Snow, Thorne does not shy from it and is not in awe of it but he lucidly sees the implications of what must it really be like to live with that responsibility, the sense of duty to yourself and all those mistakes that will be repeated. I think the writing is great — okay, you’ve been brought back to life, but do you really want to live forever? You’ve failed in your dream and, yes, you get to try again with your humanity with the whole thing with the Wildlings. Alliser Thorne thinks Snow is going to be knocked down every time. Because Alliser sees human beings as being born bad — they’re needy, greedy and selfish. It’s survival of the fittest. And if you open yourself and weaken yourself, you will be taken out by somebody else. Therefore Thorne also accepts it’s all over for him. But for Jon Snow, he’s going to repeat and repeat and as this carries on, it’s like he’s now cursed.”

We’re going to strangely miss this character, even if we never really rooted for him. After all, he just brought a great opposition to the Night’s Watch. Hey, if nothing else he was a much better adversary on this show than Olly, who mostly just serves to irritate us. Now, what we just have to wait and see is what happens next for Snow, given that his resurrection has really left him with almost nothing to lose.

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